No Such Thing As Forever
by Liriel Viridian
Summary: Returning to find someone you loved gone. Naruto doesn't exactly deal. At least not without some assistance from within himself. Of Kyuubi, pine trees, sandstone sculptures and being remembered.


**No such thing as forever**

'There is no such thing as forever, kid.' she wanted to say, in a low voice, slowly, gently. So she did.

The Kid (she called him that because he might look older than she did, but oh, were appearances ever deceiving) had been sitting on top of the monument, on a rock outcropping forming one of the bangs of the Fourth's hair – when viewed from the village. Here, any resemblance to the 'great Yondaime' vanished in warm sandstone, made warmer by the setting sun. Naruto turned and blinked at her, slowly and not exactly lazily, and stood up. One of his sandals scuffled on the ground.

'Why did you say that?' he asked, equally slowly, with something careful in his voice. She couldn't help smiling at him, just a little bit sadly, just a tad understandingly. She remembered being mortal, after all.

'You're brooding, kiddo. That's something I cannot consent to. Come, sing with me.' she drew him into shadows of pine trees, still close to the edge, and hopped up heavily onto a high branch. Her reward was a small smile followed by a warm – sandstone-warm, sunset-warm – presence at her side a moment later. The branch swayed slightly, creaked, and a few needles landed on their heads.

They chuckled. Gazing out at Hidden Leaf's lights winking on, she reached out a hand and drew it, without looking away, through his hair, strands springy under her fingers. The dislodged needles fell onto his orange jacket and then floated down, down, down, only to settle on the forest floor. His eyes followed their descent.

'You mentioned something about singing?' a murmured question which didn't really require an answer, so none was given. Not quite directly, anyway. She turned to face him, not as precarious on the baulk as she should have been considering her shortness and plumpness and clumsiness, and all other –esses which should have been surprising considering her reputation but really weren't.

'As for there not being such a thing as eternity – that is not quite true.' he jerked his face up to hers, startled. Rarely did she wear such a solemn expression, and never, aver without a reason. 'I would know, I have lived it. But you see, Little Whirlwind' blue eyes widened, and she wondered whether or not he knew why she called him that. He didn't ask. ' the eternity I know and have experienced is hardly a place you would wish on your worst enemy, never even taking a friend into consideration. There could be others, though. In fact, there most probably are. Just… not here. Not in this exact dimension, because immortality, Kid, is the worst thing to be cursed with if you have a human mind.'

She was serious. God damn it, she was completely serious. She had to get through to him.

'I know that you want to be remembered. Everyone does. And you will – hopefully for something great, hopefully you will achieve your dream, for I know that, however obnoxious and irascible at times, you have it in you. Now… Grief is normal, and healthy, and quite possibly the most real thing you will ever experience. But you have to let the ones who are to cross beyond the gates go. If you try to bring them back...' she inhaled deeply, and finished in an even more insistent, intense voice. 'If you try to bring them back, they never come back right.' Her hands on his shoulders were shaking.

'Is this why you chose such a body? Because you don't consider yourself to be "right"?' a low response, too, and bitter to the extreme. She wondered, for a split second, if the venom in his words came from his heart or brain or maybe, maybe he now had fangs on his own, without her help. She hopped down the awkward landing, the mousy hair almost soil-brown in the fading light, forest eyes and well-sewn clothes marking her as a civilian - nondescript in the twilight.

She didn't smile this time.

'You are not the only one who wants to be remembered for yourself, child.'

People in a particular moment in time were, once upon a time, compared to bugs frozen in amber. Let the moment seen through gold be the smoke from her dissolved form twining around him and slipping, silently acknowledged, under his skin as he sits alone on the damn branch. The pine needles are not swaying, because the breeze (were it to blow) would be frozen too, and the air is not heavy with expectation or depression or anything else anymore, just slightly humid.

AN: To give you a bit of background – yes, this is very much AU. Naruto has just returned from Jiraya's training, but Iruka died, somewhere along the way, a stupid, senseless death that could heve been easily avoided. The 'she' continually referred to is a shadow clone molded into the form of a 15yo civilian girl, one with no real distinguishing features – Kyuubi's preferred form which Naruto often grants her, since she's hardly as homicidal as people tend to portray her. (These two have come to an understanding during the training.) Naruto was trying to reconstruct the technique Orochimaru had used during the chuunin exams, to bring his Iruka-sensei back. Kyuu caught him red-handed, and a rather unpleasant scene followed. Naruto went off to sulk – and grieve. Kyuubi – who the heck knows what an old, wise demon does on her day off?

And yes, her strange speech patterns are deliberate. She hasn't quite accustomed herself to the human methods of communication again. And I KNOW most people consider Kyuubi to be male, but damn – it just doesn't compute. She's so much a woman that it isn't funny. Call it female intuition J.

Unbetaed. Any spelling and/or grammatical mistakes that could be pointed out… Well, let me know, and I shall be very grateful indeed.

Oh, and the description of time comes from Kurt Vonnegut's 'Slaughterhouse 5'. So I'm a nerd. So what?


End file.
